


What Makes a Family

by theGirlwithtoomanyOTPs



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra, Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/M, dont kill me, just my fantasies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-28
Updated: 2018-10-28
Packaged: 2019-08-08 15:32:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16432115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theGirlwithtoomanyOTPs/pseuds/theGirlwithtoomanyOTPs
Summary: Toph chooses to raise her children all on her own, with no husband beside or ahead of her. She chooses to disregard her family's protests and her friends' questions. She chooses to commit to no one but Republic City and motherhood. She raised Lin and Suyin Beifong against all the scrutiny with a tough exterior and tougher fists. Toph doesn't regret her decisions, believing her girls were raised all the better for it. But sometimes, she wonders if she should have let the world know about the girls' fathers. Not for the questions to stop, but for her girls.





	What Makes a Family

**Author's Note:**

> there was just no editing and this was entirely word vomit. i was reading through my drafts and this caught my attention so i ended up writing it in a quick rush dont kill me please and plus my writing is so crazy here so i'm really sorry

Toph chooses to raise her children all on her own, with no husband beside or ahead of her. She chooses to disregard her family's protests and her friends' questions. She chooses to commit to no one but Republic City and motherhood. She raised Lin and Suyin Beifong against all the scrutiny with a tough exterior and tougher fists. Toph doesn't regret her decisions, believing her girls were raised all the better for it. But sometimes, she wonders if she should have let the world know about the girls' fathers. Not for the questions to stop, but for her girls.

Perhaps they would have had an easier time throughout their puberty years. She couldn't blame them for their fighting and the bad blood. She supposes that was her fault. But she hoped she would be enough for them. Like how she chose them and that had been enough for her  
too.

She had gone against her parent's wishes because she was a mom of her own style and making. She thought that having a more on the hands mom would be better than a regular family. She admits, she may have lacked the hands on part when they were both old enough to  
look after each other. Republic City grew at a rate no one had expected. And there was no shortage of need for her presence. For every criminal she locked up, ten more appeared. She was always short of help. So she wondered, though, if she had been enough. And the more they questioned her, the more it hurt. Of course they would begin asking about their Dads. They had eyes and ears.

She wonders now, as she watches her grand kids chase each other around the gardens of Suyin's home, if she made the right decision. In her arms, baby Opal snoozes on. Maybe she did. Maybe she didn't. She reflects whether it was too late. Suyin had forgiven her. Even before she finally managed the courage to ask again who her father was. Given the occasion, Toph finally told her the truth.

It had been two days since then but Suyin hadn't quite managed to talk to her properly yet. There was no anger or anything. Just sadness. Of the lost chance to reconnect with her father. Maybe she really needed to go on another journey, perhaps on her own this time. She wonders if she should tell Lin though.

Lin was a strong girl. But she didn't think she could handle the truth like Suyin did. She wasn't as attuned to her feelings like Suyin was, after all. If she learned her father was still alive and agreed with Toph's choice to stay away from her life as much as he possibly could, Toph thinks it could destroy Lin. And she had lost so much already. Toph didn't have the heart to do that to her eldest daughter. Some people cannot handle the truth. She thinks that Lin would hate her if she found out the truth, but Toph was ready to take that hate to her grave and hope that one day Lin would understand why she kept the secret for so long. So she would probably tell Lin some lie when she asks again, if only to appease her daughter.

Toph nuzzles against Opal's head, inhaling her baby scent. It was the best scent in the world. One Toph had sorely missed.

"Mothers know best, huh, Mom? _What a load of crap_. You guys were probably winging it all the way through." 

* * *

The love affair with Zuko was short lived to his few visits to Republic City over the course of the years and cut off altogether when he asked her her two cents how she would feel about an engagement. With him, of course. Zuko was Firelord, after all, and needed a Fire Lady to stand and rule by his side and provide him heirs. She had refused, of course. As politely as she possibly could, given that he was a longtime friend.

Toph wasn't willing to spend the rest of her life like Poppy Beifong, worse than blind and saddled as some Mistress of a nobleman's estate. To be pressured into bearing him strong heirs, otherwise suffer remarks of how useless she is as a mother by the rest of her family and the court. Toph wasn't having any of that.

She was the greatest earthbender in the world. Chief to the Republic City Police. A heroine of the war. She thought the Avatar himself how to bend the toughest of all elements. Whoever the fuck could stand up against to her? She wasn't going to live one step behind the _Firelord_.  Wouldn't want to be subjected to their harsh comments, if she couldn't give Zuko a healthy heir. She wasn't going to be any kind of good wife for him. She would hate being tethered and controlled. She would have loathed being constantly watched and judged. She loved him to a point, that was for sure. As she told him, jokingly of course, to diffuse the sudden tension, "You know for a Firelord, the sex was great and all, but I'm not shagging you for the rest of my life."

But they both knew it was more than just a jest. The reality of the situation would have just made them hate each other. Zuko needed someone who would be patient and submissive. Years after the war and most of the uprising rebellions have been quelled, there were still pockets of resistance unhappy with his rule and the decisions he made. He needed someone who could support him full time. Be by his side for all days. Not someone who would conk out on procedures and lose their temper at a small slight. Toph had her own responsibilities here as well. She was Chief! She couldn't just give that up. She'd committed to this city and the people living in it.

And both also knew deep down in their hearts that the only reason Zuko would ask her was to not offend her with an engagement with someone else in the future. Maybe he did want her to be his wife, somehow, too. But he wasn't going to subject her to something that would make her feel cornered and imprisoned. He would have asked her probably because she was the only woman in the world Zuko was completely open with. And since she was a noblewoman by birth, his advisers would have probably grumbled about it for a year or two before finally letting it go when he had an heir.

It wouldn't be the life for either of them.

They ended it civilly, as politely as fuck buddies could go at the time. Toph and Zuko were both socially awkward people, despite the both having come from nobility. And how do you even do that? _Hey, sorry but I want to get married and I need a Lady by my side who wouldn't bend the turd out of my staff. No? Okay cool, see ya around?_ They did worked hard for the next few years to keep it as good as it was before the whole thing happened. Never once was it brought up that Toph was suddenly pregnant after their sudden split. Besides. Zuko didn't even find out she had been pregnant until years later.

They both were consenting adults, Toph had thought. They had allowed each other to see anyone else when the other wasn't around. And besides, Zuko was the one who got suddenly engaged just a month after he left her. Maybe Mai was always just waiting in the wings to have him back, waiting for him to be true to himself or whatever the fuck she'd been going on about when she left him, Toph never really knew and she wasn't inclined to ask.

She didn't want to know. She considered Mai a good friend too, after all. And also because she couldn't ask him. He didn't visit or write to her after that for three years. She wasn't asking their friends for information either. Even if she  _had_ said 'no'... it still kinda hurt. But now she had someone else other than herself to worry about.

Maybe Sparky thought he was doing them both a favor by giving space... to heal or something? Maybe he was avoiding awkward encounters? Whatever it was, he was being stupid as usual. (Maybe because being civil in Toph's case had meant a few torn rooms and a bill for the Firelord to cover up before the press got wind of what happened and deduce their well-kept secret.) And again, he didn't even know Toph was now a mother until his next visit to Republic City with his new and expectant Firelady. A surprise wouldn't even cover it. By then, Toph's child was already running around having sparring sessions bending rocks after Aang's youngest, the first airbender in the world after more than a hundred years, Tenzin. At almost just four, she was another prodigy, it seemed.

Somehow, everyone seemed to have forgotten to mention in their letters that Toph had given birth to a daughter. Maybe because Toph had asked them not to. Maybe because they know she had an old crush thing going on with Sokka and Zuko before. Zuko knew that if Sokka wasn't in Republic City, Toph wouldn't have told him either until it was too late. With some prodding, he finds out that even Katara only found out when she was already five months into it and couldn't keep her bulging stomach from the press anymore. (How news didn't get to the Fire Nation of the world's greatest earthbender's pregnancy, only Toph knows. It had been a shit storm of a scandal, tabloid articles and paparazzi she had to deal with for months without end.)

Lin Beifong need never know that she was both Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation nobility. Toph would never tell anyone anyway. She didn't need her daughter to know she was unplanned. That after years of careful (casual) intercourse, she was born from a harried and messy (not in the way you're thinking, you perv.) break up sex. She loved Lin. She was the best thing that ever happened to her since the Gaang came into her life and whisked her away to bigger things. She would protect Lin with her life. At all ends and costs. Even it it had been against the world itself. Even if she had to hide her from her own father. But she couldn't really protect or hide her forever, could she?

Toph's idea of diffusing awkwardness before it happened was to punch Zuko's arm, to the shock of the Firelord's staff ( _such disrespect!_ ), grinning, "my girl's a _firecracker_ isn't she?"

Inside, Toph mentally smacked herself. **_'"_** _Firecracker_ ** _'_** _?_ ** _Really?!_** _S_ _pirits!_ _Way to go, Beifong. Your foot-in-mouth disease shines through once more."_

"Oh hey, Mai!" She turns to Mai as she stepped down the ferry, her ladies in waiting glared to submission to not bother after she had also refused her husband's offer to help he, she can manage to walk the plank down herself, thank you very much. "Long time no see! Are you carrying a melon or something, you seem heavier than usual."

This time it wasn't just the staff who gasped, Toph could hear Katara positively faint and Bumi and Kya giggle behind them. It had been an official visit, after all.

"Hello! Welcome back to Air Temple Island!" Aang steps in before anything else can happen.

It was kind of awkward, Toph supposes. Maybe she was a little bit louder, laughed more obnoxiously and was an absolute wreck than normal that day Zuko first found out about Lin's existence. And maybe she had drank so much she and Lin had to stay over for the night. Not that she couldn't handle herself drunk. But Sugar Queen insisted. She was glad the room they provided her was as far as it could get from Zuko and Mai's room.

"Sorry, Toph! We didn't think you'd be needing to stay over so we couldn't get a guest room made in time!"

"Nonsense! We'll be out before the sun rises!"

And that they did, taking the first ferry out to buy groceries for the week, carrying a sleeping Lin, Toph made an excuse that she had to be in early. Royals in town and all and that she'd just see them in the more formal events later on. She somehow managed to make herself scarce there too to avoid Zuko and the questions she could feel burning off him. But he got the message.

The second time he came back to Republic City a few months after, he was alone. He tried to make a joke about the weather and it was so bad Sokka groaned. But it got Toph laughing and things were loads better after that.

_What's a weatherman's favorite reptile? A **blizzard**._

And no, Toph didn't laugh because it was funny. She laughed because he was trying so hard and she could hear him mumbling and practicing the joke about thirty minutes ago before he sidled up next to her and Sokka.

When they find the time to be alone and away from the rest of Republic City's finest, Zuko asks her about Lin. She was afraid of this. She wouldn't hide it from him, of course, had he asked. But instead, he asked _about_ Lin. And Zuko spent the rest of the evening being regaled by the tales and legends of his daughter.

It was clear in his face that he wanted to meet Lin. He hadn't really had the chance to the last time. She had been surrounded by her cousins and spent most of the day with Tenzin or her Mama's side. It was obvious they were close or at least, she didn't want to be apart from her Mom when she was around. She was still only barely four years old when he first learned upon her.

But from watching (staring like a creep, is what Toph said) he could tell she was a spunky kid, talented and shrewd like her mother before her, with her whole life ahead of her. He understood why Toph wouldn't let him claim her as his daughter out loud.

He would be taking away the chance of as normal a childhood Lin could get. She already had the shadow of her mother's achievements and fame looming over her, not to mention her old earth kingdom lineage. If he added his own into that, he might subject her to a lifetime of doubled, even quadrupled, with high expectations. She was going to be better off without him in the picture. He knew that. Knowing that didn't make it hurt any less.

He came to Republic City once more even though his wife is soon expecting, not just because diplomatic purposes, he could have sent a delegate for that. But for Toph and Lin. He had to do this personally. Before he has a family. Honor, friendship and his peace of mind demanded it. He wasn't going to take Lin from Toph. But she'd be damned if he couldn't even talk to his child. He was already in love with Lin. He loved Toph too, for a time, there. But what's done was done. He just wanted to be there for Lin, too. He had sworn to be a better father than Ozai. He swore he would love his children with as much love as his Uncle Iroh had given him. He swore he would never let his children down. He would fight even Toph for it. He would probably lose, she was absolutely terrifying when upset. Zuko had seen mother saber-tooth moose lions protect their cubs in fury that they can sometimes manage to drive dragons away. He thinks Toph would be about ten times worse. And yet he finds himself ready to face that for a right to his daughter.

"Toph, I---"

"Save it , Sparky," she cuts him off right away. She looks over to Yue Bay with a soft smile. "We'll be _fine_. She's my life now. I won't let anything happen to her."

"I'm not questioning your parenting skills, Toph," he defends immediately. But only because it was true. Lin was happy and healthy and taken care of as well as any loving mother would. He didn't doubt the love she had for their child. "You're doing very well."

"You don't think I know that?" She answers with a laugh of false bravado. She then exhales a long breath after that and falls silent. He waits for her. That's all he could do now. And in a minute, she groans. "Aw, who are we kidding. One of these days I'm gonna screw that kid up and she'll hate me forever... But it's fine. She'll be fine. She's stronger than me. Far, _far_ stronger. I just don't want to bring her into all that crap, Zuko. I hope you understand that."

And he did. Zuko reaches for her hand and clasps his over hers on the railing. Her hand is cold. It was snowing, after all. And she was still wearing her armor. He tries to warm her up. He hasn't touched her in years. There was something comforting and familiar there. He wasn't going to think about that. He missed his friend, that much he knew. It was all that mattered.

"Thanks," she said with a grin. "Forgot how comfy you can be once you get past all your awkwardness."

"I'm not awkward!" His cheeks heat up and Toph laughs mockingly. Zuko relishes that laugh and he bumps her shoulder with his. She smiles up to him.

"You're a great mom, Toph." He says to her. He makes his decision quickly. Any more thinking and he might regret it later. This was not about him. This was about what was best for Lin Beifong. "I want to make a great Uncle, too. For Lin."

Toph's smile becomes a quiver and he can see tears pool in her eyes but she looks away before he can see them fall. She looks over he city again and doesn't say anything for a while.

They settle in a comfortable silence until she takes her hand away from his and turns to him with her usual smirk.

"So where'd you get the dragon?! You never told me!"

"That's actually a funny story. Aang never told you?"

"Aang was there?!"

"Yeah, well we were traveling through the Sun warriors' temples again..."

**Author's Note:**

> gaaaaaasp who the fuck is Kanto?


End file.
